


Bent Not Broken

by raven_aorla



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Bending, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everybody Lives, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No ATLA knowledge required, Non-Chronological, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: In a 'verse where some people can "bend" one of the four classical elements - and the Alliance loves to get its hands on them - non-bender Malcolm Reynolds manages to collect a whole set on his ship.[A collection of stories from all over the timeline. Powers roughly follow the rules of Avatar the Last Airbender, but no other fandom aspects are present.]
Relationships: Hoban Washburne/Zoë Washburne, Kaylee Frye/Simon Tam, Malcolm Reynolds & Zoë Washburne, Malcolm Reynolds/Inara Serra, River Tam & Simon Tam, Shepherd Derrial Book & Jayne Cobb, Shepherd Derrial Book & Kaylee Frye
Comments: 19
Kudos: 53





	1. in their elements

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Big Damn Heroes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/164491) by [Damkianna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna). 



> Inspired by an excellent fic (see link) that put the ATLA characters in a very Firefly-esque world.

_hidden fire_

Most benders are in the Core. It runs in families, after all, even if not a hundred percent, and the Alliance likes keeping them close, useful. Tame. You can make a nice bit of coin for yourself bagging any stray benders and handing them over, never to be seen again. This is a big reason why the Alliance beats the Independents during the War.

It’s also a big reason that Mal never sees Zoe shoot flames from her hands until the day they’re cornered, out of ammo, out of backup and out of hope. He keeps her secret, of course, they don’t even need to discuss it beyond a mutual nod.

On first glance, she doesn’t fit the firebender stereotype. Zoe runs calm and cool, steadfast like people say belongs to earthbenders. But that’s before you factor in not only a lifetime of hiding from the Alliance, but a lifetime spent largely on ships. Flames use up oxygen that humans need more, _dong ma_?

Their work partnership and long-standing friendship, though deep, isn’t enough for Mal to ask Zoe what it’s like to have so much power inside you and almost never let it out. He never asks a miracle from her. The rest of their eventual little family learn the truth too, but also learn to leave it be.

(Years later, Niska and his crew find out what an unrestrained Zoe looks like.)

*

_windblown leaf_

Wash’s home planet is close enough to the Core that benders are, by law, required to have a tracking chip installed at the base of their neck when they reach adulthood. However, it is far enough from the Core that it isn’t hard to bribe the right people to install a completely inactive fake instead. One you can pretend broke by accident if you get caught by the authorities.

It’s reasonable to ask why an airbender would want to spend so much of his life out in the black, where there’s not much air to be had. Truth is that gliding through the sky of a single world isn’t enough for the deep flight-lust that has stirred in Wash ever since he could remember, especially when he lives somewhere so polluted he can’t even see the stars if he stays on the ground.

The most dangerous parts of any spaceship journey are takeoff and landing, and that’s where Wash’s gift really comes in handy. He can twist and manipulate the air currents that surround them whenever they’re in the slightest amount of atmosphere, including the upper layers. With him at the helm, a lithe little thing like _Serenity_ can blast off with minimal fuel expended and survive landings that otherwise would have been deadly crashes.

(Even noncombatant airbenders specialize in evasion. After the most taxing landing he’s ever bent them through, he reflexively pushes himself away from that horrible Reaver harpoon thing shooting towards him, about to impale him. In fact, he bangs his head on the ceiling with the force of his escape. Zoe carries him out, stunned, into Mr. Universe’s base. Mal offers, but Zoe is stronger than anyone knows, and Wash has always been lighter than he should be.)

*

_hear the engine talk_

Kaylee’s from a one-horse town on a dusty moon where no benders have been seen since the War, when the Alliance killed or took away the handful of ‘em who enlisted as Browncoats. She’s never had a teacher and never learned how to bend earth without having to actually kneel down and place her hands on the ground, and her range is only a meter or two even so. Ain’t exactly the stuff of legend. She doesn’t mention it to Mal when he hires her, been raised to keep quiet.

But natural genius finds a way. Wash is the one who surprises her in the engine room one day while she’s got her hands deep in _Serenity_ ’s innards. He notices that if she’s touching them, she can coax damaged ceramic _and metal_ parts into shapes that will hold for a few more days or even weeks. He’s the one who tells her how rare metalbending is in an earthbender, let alone untaught.

Zoe, however, is the one who convinces Mal that this isn’t an excuse to cut corners on replacement parts when Kaylee says they’re needed.

(That’s how they get the ambulance fixed up so fast for the heist on Ariel, Kaylee bending up a sweat while Zoe lends a bit of impromptu blowtorching when she asks.)

*

_healing fountain_

Waterbending alone can’t truly fix a gunshot wound, though it might keep it from killing the patient if you know what you're doing. It can help stabilize the patient and stop the bleeding. It can numb. It can sterilize the instruments. It can gently draw out the bullet. It can even take the place of standard scalpels if you’re good enough, if you can bend droplets into something sharper and stronger than ice could ever be on its own. Simon is good enough, though he prefers metal surgical instruments so that he doesn't have to concentrate on keeping their shape. Not all the best surgeons on Osiris are waterbenders, but at least eighty percent of them are, and of those, Simon is in the ninetieth percentile. On _Serenity_ , he learns his final healing lesson: how to conserve water. He'd always known it was precious, but he insists on only the purest water for serious injuries, and if that means drinking stale recycled supplies until they can get more, so be it.

He wouldn’t be allowed to stay on Serenity if he still had an active tracking chip. During the meeting where he explains his and River’s situation, he also shows them the scar left from how he extracted it himself in preparation to rescue River. The angle was very difficult, but he’d made all the tools he needed. Water for the mirror, water for the pain, water for the incision, water to close it up again.

(Beyond a few moves for basic self-defense, Simon is a horrible fighter. He specializes in small, precise gestures used for healing. Fighting was never expected of him. During one of her lucid days, River shares that their family wanted one doctor and one military officer out of their two children, and the moment Simon showed an interest in medicine and River showed how graceful she was, they were set upon different paths. This makes him easy to overpower, whether it be by ignorant hillfolk or Jayne’s bitter ex-business partner. Non-bender Jayne makes fun of him for being "weaker" than someone with no powers at all.)

*

_thawing stream_

By now Mal’s met benders of every kind and employs one of each, but he’s never seen nor heard of a bender whose bending is simply _gone_. Simon claims River used to be a waterbending prodigy as well as being an intellectual one. Simon claims has no idea why she hasn’t even bent a teacup’s worth of liquid ever since he saved her. It’s unclear if it’s simply trauma, or if whatever procedures and mind games they put her through have done something to her abilities. She shouldn’t have been chipped, not as young as she is, but Simon found two different chips embedded in her spine and removed both while she was in cryostasis. The first one was a standard tracker. He’s studying the second, but even with help from the others he has no idea what it was for.

Sometimes when Mal’s about to barge in on Inara’s shuttle in a manly and impulsive manner, he finds her and River seated across from each other, meditating. Inara’s not a bender or a doctor, but he supposes Companions are trained in the soothing arts as well as the sexing ones. He tiptoes away and leaves them to it. Whatever keeps the poor girl calm. River seems harmless, beyond the occasional antics of a damaged but sweet young soul. And, fine, that one time she came after Jayne with a knife.

Then comes the day that Kaylee reluctantly reports that, during the raid on Niska’s base, she saw River _bloodbend_. Which is an extremely advanced waterbending technique on top of being all kinds of horrific. Even Jayne looks sick.

“Are you sure that’s what you saw?” Zoe asks carefully.

Kaylee looks miserable and nods. “I saw ‘em jerkin’ and movin’ all odd and crying out, and they started to bleed from their mouths and noses and, and their eyes too. River just looked at me and smiled. Like nothin’ was wrong. Even when her hands were...” she mimed sweeping hand and arm motions with her fingers curled into something like claws.

“Did you know about this, doc?” Jayne growls. “That the real reason why she got herself burned at the stake?”

“I think it’s time to come clean, if there’s anything you haven’t told us,” Mal says, less aggressively but still firm.

Simon looks like someone’s bloodbent all the blood out of his face. “I didn’t know she could do that.”

“I’m getting the sense there’s something you do know, son,” Book says. Maybe it’s his paternal voice tone that does it. Simon strikes Mal as someone with unresolved Must Please Father issues, after all.

“They saw her both waterbend and earthbend,” Simon mumbles. “At least that’s what they said. I didn’t see it. River won’t tell me. By their logic, that meant she was a witch.”

Wash scoffs. “This sounds like a fairytale.”

“Your wife can breathe fire if she’s mad enough, dear,” Zoe says.

“Your point being?”

“Enough, I think we need to sleep on this,” Mal says.

Then Early the bounty hunter happens. The crew takes him down easily, and in the process realize that they don’t want River to go, whatever she is.

*

_blue sun_

NAME: Tam, River

AGE: 17

WANTED: ALIVE

SPECIAL NOTES: Escapee from Project Avatar. Naturally a waterbender, has been successfully trained and/or upgraded with bloodbending, earthbending, metalbending, and airbending. Was mid-firebending implantation when subject was lost. Actual subsequent firebending ability unconfirmed but possible. Subject may have gleaned highly classified information as an unintentional side effect of training simulations. Subject is erratic, with symptoms resembling paranoid schizophrenia and a partial block resulting in bending not being under conscious control.

INSTRUCTIONS: If possible, incapacitate and capture. Report to Parliamentary Operative immediately.

*

_blaze of glory_

Wash, his head still hurting from dodging the spear, whistles when the doors open and they see River in a wide, proud stance surrounded by her fallen foes. “Do I have a concussion, or is that a _lot_ of ways Reavers can be dead?


	2. upon this rock I will build

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bunch of ideas for this 'verse have blossomed in my head. Here's the first of them.

Jayne’s bench and weights have to be off to the side of the cargo bay, on account of Zoe and Wash needing to take up a lot of space for the closest thing they do to bending practice while they’re out in the black. Zoe almost never makes flames then, but she and her husband do different but similar lunging-shoving-shouting in unison before chasing each other around and up and down the upper deck. Sometimes leaping onto any cargo that’s handy and can take their weight. Instead of fire, Zoe keeps wads of long red cloth strips balled up in her hands to fling out symbolically. Wash’s bending doesn’t reduce the amount of oxygen on the ship, just shifts it around some, so it’s alright for him to make a few breezes as long as he doesn’t start knocking things over. 

Shepherd Book’s a good lifting buddy, one of the few happy surprises Jayne’s experienced lately, and he can keep up a conversation even when he’s the one on the bench and Jayne’s the one spotting. While keeping a proper amount of attention on the Shepherd, Jayne can’t ignore the squirreling around and occasional HI-YA! going on nearby. “Don’t get why the little man does all them twirls and jumps in practice when he never uses his magic hands for anything but easing the ship around. Not that I ain’t grateful, I don’t wanna crash or explode or do whatever we’d do without him.”

“All benders need to move their bodies in a way that matches the energy they channel,” Shepherd says with a bit of a grunt, pushing up with perfect form. “Or so I’m told. Haven’t you ever seen Simon and River doing tai chi together in the passenger lounge? Even if she doesn’t bend these days, she’d cramp up and be even more troubled without going through the motions.”

“Haven’t seen Kaylee doing anything like whatever the hell earthbenders do.”

“I suspect her constant movement in the engine room, tending to the machinery, does that for her naturally. As if the ship itself is her sparring partner. It’s all conjecture, of course.”

“Gorram freaky benders. Guns are more reliable.”

Shepherd laughs as he completes his set and racks the weights. “You’re not the first to think such gifts can be burdens.” Then he gets up and switches to a dumbbell in each hand.

It isn’t until months later, when Shepherd’s not a passenger anymore, that Jayne thinks about how he shoved those big heavy weights around. Smooth and confident-like. And he wouldn’t have thought about it at all if he hadn’t laid eyes on what happened after the Alliance attacked Haven.

*  
It’s been an absolutely _kěxiào [ridiculous]_ few days. They’ve only just barely absorbed the news that the “Miranda” River whispered after being triggered is a planet none of them knew about, some tragic and dangerous secret she picked up while the Academy filled her dreams with the ins and outs of terraforming as part of adding earthbending to her skills. Now, though, Wash is guiding them down to Haven where they were hoping to clear their heads in safety, and…

Everything is in smoking ruins. A big military ship has crash landed because someone was chucking huge boulders at it, almost as big as _Serenity’s_ shuttles. There are dead soldiers lying all over the place, almost all of them buried in rock slides or beaten down by the earth itself.

“Doc?” Mal murmurs, his tone cold.

“I’ll get my bag,” Simon says, looking as stunned as Kaylee feels. River’s eyes are a lost little girl’s, nothing like the triple-bender living weapon who used everything but fire in the Maidenhead bar. 

“I can carry water for you,” Jayne says, and that’s how everyone knows he’s shaken too. Haven has irrigation canals, but they’re muddy, and Simon needs pure water to do his best work. 

Wash touches them down a little more bumpily than usual for a landing when they haven’t lost any parts along the way. Kaylee doesn’t blame him.“Should I take Gander for recon?” ‘Gander’ is what Wash calls his glider, a man-sized kite Kaylee and Zoe helped him make out of aluminum and canvas. He grew up using similar things to play with fellow airbending friends (including the one who now goes by Mr. Universe). Buying one would draw attention to himself as a rogue bender. Mal originally groaned when he realized the pun (as in both male goose and “to take a gander” meaning to look around) but Kaylee thinks it’s hilarious. 

Nothing about this moment is hilarious. Mal considers Wash’s offer, then nods. “Best you do.”

A few minutes later, they’re all on the ground except for Inara, who’s watching _Serenity_ and will radio if there’s trouble. They need to search for Shepherd Book as well as their other friends, as well as any survivors at all. Wash is saying to Zoe, “You know I can protect myself as long as any of my limbs or mouth are free.” Zoe’s making noises of agreement but also making him carry an emergency flare in addition to his radio. Then he runs and leaps. Off he goes.

“There’s only dead soldiers,” Jayne points out, shifting the plastic jug in one hand and Vera in the other. “But there ain’t nobody living around.”

“There is,” River says. 

“Something you’re sensing?” Mal asks, and it’s amazing how gentle, even fatherly, he’s gotten with her when you’d think what’s happened lately would have made him the opposite. River’s still not good at explaining what she feels, but it’s become clear that she picks up way more about the location and condition of all the elements around her than Kaylee thought a person ever could.

“Blood pressure’s weak. Conscious, will faint soon. Elderly man, probably, can’t promise it’s him, but -” River breaks into a run, and there’s nothing to do but follow her.

It’s him. They find their friend collapsed inside a protective circular wall of raised soil and clay. His eyes fly open but he can’t seem to sit up. Kaylee puts her hand on the wall to lower a section of it and make an easy entrance. 

“We’ve got you, Shepherd, the doc’s here and he can take care of it,” Mal says, crouching down, face tight with worry. Jayne puts down the jug and unscrews the cap before joining Zoe in standing guard at different angles. Can’t guarantee there won’t be more surprises. 

Simon’s face, on the other hand, goes smooth and professional as he puts on his Concerned But Professional Doctor Voice. Kaylee used to find it robotic, but now she knows it helps him focus even when he’s upset. He drops to his knees, ignoring the dust on his nice pants. “Did you do all the earthbending yourself, or did you have help?”

“Only...bender on this...moon,” Shepherd Book struggles to say. His shoulder’s been grazed by a laser, looks like. Simon pulls water out of the jar and through the air to pour onto the wound and also help him sense any internal injuries. There’s a red trickle at the corner of his patient’s mouth, which isn’t good.

Simon’s probably as surprised as everyone else about this revelation of the peaceful Shepherd not only being a bender but such a powerful one in combat, but he keeps his Doctor Face on. “How long has it been since the last time you’ve done a substantial amount of bending?”

“Six...six years? Seven?”

This isn’t the time to ask why.

This isn’t the time to be hurt that he didn’t confide in them.

This really isn’t the time to be hurt that he knew Kaylee desperately wants a teacher, and did nothing about it.

“What does that mean for him?” Mal asks Simon.

“He’s massively overstrained himself. His energy levels are so depleted that it’s a wonder he’s conscious.”

Shepherd reaches up with the arm Simon isn’t working on and puts a hand on Mal’s face. “Mal, this is important, Mal, I made a cave for everyone to hide in, hidden entrance, but it’s collapsed and I can’t get them out, I can’t -”

“We’ll find them and get them out,” Mal says, as if that’s something he can promise.

“Kaylee?”

“I’m here.” Kayle crouches down to his eye level and tries to smile.

“I’m sorry I left you alone. But you can - I don’t care what you - just believe.” That uses up the last of his strength, and he passes out.

“A lot of blood,” River says. While nobody was paying attention, she must have jumped (floated?) on top of the bunker wall, and now she’s sitting there with legs dangling, but in the least carefree way anyone has ever sat like that. 

“There’s a small amount of internal bleeding, but it’s survivable,” Simon replies.

River shakes her head and points, arm fully stretched. “Not here. Under the ground. Point eight kilometers that way.”

“You can feel that?” Kaylee asks.

“Morbid and creepifying,” River says, like she’s quoting something she heard. “Pumping fast. They’re scared.”

Kaylee and Zoe follow River, while Mal and Jayne help Simon get Shepherd to somewhere safer. Saving the townsfolk could use as many benders as possible, even if Kaylee’s weak and River’s blocked except for when she’s triggered by either subliminal orders or fear for her life. 

River takes them to a mound of dirt. “Down there. Deep. Rocks, too.”

This is terrifying, but Kaylee has to try. She puts her hands on the mound and concentrates as much as she can. Earth shifts, yeah, but it only scratches the surface.

“Is there something you can do?” Kaylee asks Zoe.

“Nothing I’d be sure wouldn’t hurt them - excuse me a moment.” Zoe whips around and shoots a ball of fire off into the distance. 

“Six conscious people left above ground that aren’t one of us,” River says, tilting her head like she’s listening. “Was seven, but Zoe got one. I could tell you about the weapons, but it’s not a priority. Nothing Zoe, Jayne, and Mal can’t take. Kaylee, you can do this.”

She wants to cry. “I don’t know how.”

“You do. It’s inside you. This moon is another engine, Kaylee, and something’s stuck inside. No power in the ‘verse can stop you. All you need is to need it more than you’re afraid of it. Get up.”

“Huh?”

“Get up. It hurts when I bend, but it doesn’t hurt to take the stances. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I was...it was too much, and too far down. But they pulled it up and I remember now.”

River shows Kaylee how to stand and move. As Kaylee copies her, she gets the oddest sensation of her feet being rooted to the ground. Strong. Stable. 

“I don’t like how they made me learn it,” River says quietly, as she sweeps her arms, “But I like how it makes me feel like I’m part of a world. Good. Good. Yes. Shout it with me. Three, two, one...HA!”

The ground splits open, and the screams that come at first turn into cheers and desperate gratitude once the people of Haven learn who saved them. 

*

 _Serenity_ doesn’t return to Haven until almost a month after Miranda, given the need for repairs. They spent the night after the attack refueling and recovering, but when Mal learned that every single other refuge of theirs was wiped out by the Operative, he had to take decisive action. The crew nearly mutinied before he convinced them that the Alliance wasn’t going to stop, would probably even hit Haven again, unless they found a way to get the Alliance off their backs. They did, but they all nearly died in the process. Thanks to Wash’s airbending and River coming into her own as a four-element “Avatar” at the very last minute, though, all of them are alive and ready to pay their friend a visit.

The townsfolk throw them a wonderful dinner party, full of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as meats and noodles. The locals treat them like big damn heroes, not only for what Kaylee did but also for getting the word out about Miranda. It’s like another party a village threw them once, but without the accidental marriage. Or at least Mal hopes so. He’s avoided any direct interaction with any women who aren’t from his own ship, to be on the safe side. Zoe and Wash are persuaded to show off their bending as a couple, Jayne brings out his guitar to join the local band, and River dances. Even Simon relaxes a mite, sings along, and actually cuddles and kisses Kaylee where people can see them. The local dandelion wine someone keeps pouring for him probably helps with that, but apparently a waterbending physician worth his raindrops can cure hangovers easily. Boy deserves to let loose for once. 

Shepherd Book presides over it all like a wise, beloved _dàyé [father’s-elder-brother uncle]_ at a family reunion. He asks Mal and Kaylee to join him for tea in his meditation rock garden afterwards, alone. It’s in the corner of his larger plot beside the cottage he lives in. The rest is devoted to growing produce and medicinal herbs. The stars shine brightly over them as Kaylee and Mal follow his lead and sit on stone benches around a low table. The teacups and teapot are also made of carved stone, and the preacher isn’t shy this time about manipulating them through bending instead of his hands. Kaylee watches with total fascination. 

“Is River putting Simon to bed for once?” Book asks with a slight smile. “It’s a refreshing role reversal.”

“She’s doing much better now that she’s broken from that leash they put on her,” Mal says. The Fruity Oatey Bar trigger started shaking that control loose, learning Miranda’s truth shook it a bit more, and then River apparently tore through whatever programming was left when Simon got shot by the Reavers and she took them down. It gives Mal chills, so he takes a sip of the tea. It’s got both sweeter and bitter notes than Inara’s, not that hers isn’t excellent too. “Her brother gave this complicated explanation, boiled down to how having power ain’t good for your mind if you can’t make peace with it. Different from choosing not to.”

“Which I’ve heard some people do,” Kaylee says, raising her eyebrows.

Book chuckles. “You may have heard it took me three days to wake up after you brought me home. I woke up to a stern letter regarding the necessity of my gradual return to bending in order to make a full recovery, and also lecturing me about depriving Kaylee of earthbending guidance. Signed ‘Dr. Simon Tam, Waterbending Master (Healing Type), Capital City Medical School, Osiris.’”

It’s too dark to see if Kaylee is blushing, but her voice sounds like she is. “Ain’t heard nothing ‘bout that. That was real nice of him.”

“I’m not ready to tell you all the details of my past, but I spent many years using my gift in ways that I am deeply ashamed of now. To harm, not to build. I found it easiest to give it up in order to make a clean break with that part of my life. As well as not be found by anyone with an interest in having me return to that way of living. I’ve learned, as with so many things, that ‘easiest’ is not the same as ‘best’.” He sips his tea. “All of you are always welcome to stay awhile, but I have a proposition for you, Kaylee. It’s difficult to learn bending on a ship. Would you like to spend a month studying earthbending with me? I’d suggest longer, but I doubt your captain would survive.”

“We’ll all miss you, _mèimei [little sister]_ , but if it’s what you want, I’ll sign off on it. All of us are staying four days anyhow to help with rebuilding Maybe you can show River some basic mechanic skills before we go, now that she can metalbend on her own.” The girl's a fast learner, and Wash knows enough about how engines work that he can give her some guidance when Kaylee's not there.

“I’d really like that. I’ll have to tell Simon, but he’ll understand.” Kaylee cradles her teacup in both hands. “Don’t think you could spare both of us at once. And River lives easier out in the black. She told me it’s calmer in her head when there isn’t so much of all the elements to pick up.” 

“Why don’t you go check on your young man, and tomorrow we can talk about the details,” Book says. Kaylee thanks both of them and heads back towards the ship, a skip in her step. Mal talks to his friend about other matters for a while before he does the same. 

*

Simon wakes up in the middle of the night, thirsty for something that isn't alcohol, only to find that Kaylee’s wrapped herself around him. He tries to lift one arm without waking her. She wakes up anyway.

“What time is it?” she mumbles.

“Too early.” He twists his hand and fingers to pull the water inside the bottle on his desk closer, bringing the bottle with it so he can drink without doing more than sitting up slightly. 

“Gonna stay for a month ‘n learn earthbending f’real, _hǎo bu hǎo [good or not good]_? Want easy bending without, y'know, touching it, like for you.”

He’ll miss her, but however clumsy he is with romance, he knows enough to know that keeping someone from following her dreams isn’t real love. “Good. I mean, I’d stay with you if I could, but I think someone would die if I was away that long.”

She snorts. “Yeah, probably. But we’re gonna have so much sex before you go.”

“Ah...erm....” He’s not reluctant in the least, it’s just that he’s not used to simply being able to say what he wants for himself. 

Her teasing tone shows that she understands. “Do I need to convince you?”

“No, you definitely don’t need to convince me.” He adjusts to hold her more comfortably. “Can I send you a wave sometimes, while we’re apart?”

“You can send me any kind of waves you want, waterboy.” She kisses the side of his neck and giggles before drifting off again. He returns to sleep soon too, feeling more stable and grounded than he’s ever felt before.

*

Shepherd Derrial Book rises at dawn to meditate. His brothers at the abbey didn’t tell him to give up bending. That had been his own vow. He’s gladder than ever that he’s broken it.

In his mind, he cultivates blankness except for one phrase, something Christ himself said, and something he should have paid more heed to: _Upon this rock I will build my church._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters are not meant to correspond with the ATLA cast, but Shepherd Book turned out to be another Uncle Iroh, so I had to bring in the tea as tribute. We know because of the episode "Ariel" that he meditates in a rock garden when given the option. Also, his friendship with Jayne is wholesome and deserves to be highlighted more often.


	3. all washed out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "War Stories" goes a bit differently with bending in the mix.

At beginning, Niska enjoys himself, but there is nothing out of ordinary. Malcolm Reynolds and the man with him, who from context Niska understands is the pilot “Wash”, bicker with one another to distract from pain. He allows it. They will be unable to soon, and he is curious to see at what moment Reynold’s reputation for bravado and charm will fail him.

Niska notices over time that Reynolds is repeating a phrase, trying to bury it in sentences so that captors won’t realize anything is odd. “Gotta be smart about this.” He especially says it moments after a particularly strong jolt. It is, perhaps, some coded order, for Wash gives a little nod in response much of the time. 

To investigate further, Niska gestures for the technician to do something that will startle Wash, make it harder for him to “be smart about this”. Instead of another shock, Wash gets a hot iron suddenly pressed against the skin bared by his partly-open shirt. It is expected that he screams. It is not expected that the force of the air coming out of his mouth knocks the technician to the other side of the room with enough force to make a loud clanging noise and an “oof!”. But it does.

It takes Niska two seconds to put together the pieces. Oh, how right Shan Yu was when he wrote of how to truly meet a man. A slow smile spreads across Niska’s face, and he gestures again, this time to tell the technician that they are pausing. “Were you hoping to hide this from me long enough to try to escape later? Tsk tsk.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wash gasps.

Niska gives him a pat that would be almost friendly, if it weren’t directly on the new burn mark. Wash winces and squirms but stays quiet. “Is good occupation to hide in direct sight, a pilot. _Serenity_ has reputation for agility, given such poor parts.”

“Whatever you’re thinking, that ain’t it,” Reynolds says desperately, and that’s all the confirmation Niska needs.

“It all becomes clear. I’ll be back with you soon.” Reynold’s torture continues, but on the maintenance level, nothing special, while Niska is distracted. Niska orders Wash gagged thoroughly. Then has him drugged, not to unconsciousness because that would be a waste of all the hard work that’s gone to his current state, only enough to make him drowsy and slow while still feeling every bit of agony. His destiny will be different now, and he should be sorted apart from now on.

“How much medical treatment do you want for him, sir?” asks one of the men unchaining Wash and buckling his confused but unresisting self onto a stretcher. They are strapping him down at multiple points and, as instructed, shaping his hands into fists that they are wrapping with bandages so that his fingers will be immovable. 

“Enough to make long-term recovery, but...not to make comfortable.” Breaking and conditioning someone is more work than slowly killing him, but it will be worth it. This man’s kind is so very rare in this corner of the galaxy. 

The first mate visits to bargain for her men, the one she follows and the one she loves. Niska enjoys free money, but his reputation requires someone to die in blood and tears for failing him, so Reynolds cannot be returned. And no amount of money can (reliably) buy Niska another airbender to make his own and have at his beck and call, so Wash cannot be returned either. 

He respects the woman’s honor and poise, so he lets her keep the money and pass out of his space station unharmed. He sees no risk in that.

*

He should have.

_“This is something the captain needs to do for himself.”_

_“No, it’s not!”_

_Niska almost gets away, but after all that, it ends in fire._

*

Jayne and the Shepherd have got a horribly battered, but coherent, Mal between them and are getting him back to the ship and to Simon’s healing. Zoe assures them that she can handle the rest from here. Jayne is the worst at concealing his gaping awe at the destruction she’s caused all around her, to the point that right now it’s easier to keep her fists wreathed in fire than to keep turning them off and on again. 

Zoe finds a cowering guard who tells her where Wash is being kept. She keeps her promise and doesn’t burn him to death, though he might need skin grafts. Not her problem. 

She finds her husband strapped to a table with his mouth covered in tape, a needle in his arm, his hands more like mittens, and his eyes dilated and unfocused. His shirt is unbuttoned and gaping open. 

“Zoe?” he asks as soon as he's freed, blinking hard. 

“It’s me, baby.” Zoe removes the IV as gently as she can, and grabs a few vials of mysterious drugs from a nearby shelf in case that’ll help the doctor figure out what exactly is in Wash’s system. “We need to go.”

Wash sits up slowly, but under his own power, and it turns out he can walk with an arm over Zoe’s shoulder and her taking a lot of his weight. “Is someone having a barbecue? I haven’t had ribs in ages. Pork ribs, I mean. My ribs are still there. I think.” He looks down at his chest as if to check. In the process, he steps over one of Niska’s men who is bleeding from the kneecap (maybe tagged by Shepherd) and crawling towards the escape pod area. He genuinely doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Been a bit busy.”

“Yes, that makes sense. You work too hard. We should take a few days off somewhere. I like your face so much, Zoe. Your hair is in your face.” With his free hand, he makes a gesture and a tiny breeze blows the misbehaving curls out of the way. 

“That’d be nice.” She doesn’t kiss him until they’re safely on the ship again.

*

Wash is in not as much pain as he was before he accidentally airbent and the jig was up. It’s not hard to push the remaining pain aside. He feels a bit like most of him’s been put aside. Not gone, but buried under fuzz and a ringing in his ears. It was loud while they were making their exit.

It’s bright in the infirmary, though not as bright as it was in that room where he ended up after being separated from Mal. Who is here now, sleeping on the shelf-thing where Simon puts the patient he isn’t actively working on but still keeping an eye on, if he’s got someone else in the main chair-bed-thing. Got some fresh bandages on him, and Simon gave him something to make him more comfortable so he can rest better. Wash stares at him as Simon gives him - Wash, not Mal, that’d be silly because Mal’s unconscious - an electrolyte/vitamin drink that tastes like someone had heard of cherries by vague rumor, but Wash gulps it down like the best thing ever that isn’t wife or flight or dinosaurs. 

While Simon’s been examining him, both with medical instruments and with some of the nice cool water held against his chest, Wash realizes he’s been rambling about his preferred barbecue meats and sides for...some time? Zoe’s holding his hand. It’s nice. She smells like woodsmoke. 

“I’m sorry, doctor,” Zoe’s saying. “I’ve had a long day. Could you break that down for me?”

Simon nods. He’s so much calmer and more confident in this room than he is absolutely anywhere else. If Wash didn’t have Zoe, he’d say it was attractive.

“You can say other people are attractive, I know it’s just you having eyes and nothing else,” Zoe says, an amused twist to her mouth. Wash wasn’t aware he was still talking. He’s glad she has a sense of humor about it. 

“My best guess, based on his symptoms and the drugs you retrieved, is they were trying for ‘suggestible addict’, as it’s easier to reinforce programming if someone also develops a chemical dependency,” Simon explains, maybe blushing slightly. It’s hard to tell when it’s so bright in here. “The physical injuries have already been treated. The more conservative remedy would be a monitored detox, which is likely going to be several days of withdrawal symptoms including severe nausea and possibly hallucinations.”

“Could I fly the ship?” Wash asks.

“Before you were fully recovered? I’d strongly advise against it. Especially not any serious bending.” Simon pauses. “There’s another strategy I could try, which would theoretically get you back to normal within hours.”

“ _Fechang hao (excellent)_ , do that.”

“Wait. I need you to understand the full implications.”

“Make her understand, that’s more important.” Wash fidgets. They need to invest in a comfy pillow for the infirmary. 

Zoe raises an eyebrow. “You don’t sound totally sure about it.”

“I know how to do it, but some people find it unsettling. It’s colloquially known as IV-bending. Only very advanced medical students who are also master waterbenders ever learn it. I’d inject a saline solution and move it around your circulatory system in order to flush out the drugs and allow you to pass them out of your body much more quickly.” With a deep breath, Simon continues, “Though it’s legal where I’m from, it’s highly regulated. It shares characteristics with bloodbending. Which is considered a violation of bodily autonomy and a severe crime. In a hospital setting I’d be required to have either the patient or the patient’s designated advocate sign a special waiver. It isn’t painful, but apparently it’s a bizarre sensation. I’d like to request privacy during the procedure.” 

Zoe thinks about it for a moment. Wash has already spoken his thoughts on the matter and is now thinking about working on Gander with Kaylee. They’ve been having trouble getting the left wing balanced right, and correcting for it with his bending is an annoying distraction. Eventually, Zoe says, “We trust you.”

Simon’s smile is brief but makes him look even younger for a second. “Wash, I need you to hold still while I’m doing this. I’d rather not have to use any restraints or paralytics and distress you.”

Something deep inside Wash, unaffected by the now-pleasant fuzz, screams a little. “Yeah, uh, let’s not do that. I can hold still. I’m great at holding still. I’ve held still for ages. To be fair, I was usually playing a holo game at the time, but...also I think I need to pee first.”

Zoe helps with that, then gives him a kiss and leaves him to it. He hopes she goes to get some rest.

Once Simon actually gets down to business, it does feel really, really weird. He hovers his hands about two centimeters over the area he’s working on, making tiny finger movements so precise it makes violinists look like air traffic controllers. Wash feels the saline spread out from the site and creep through his body as Simon guides it. It doesn’t hurt, but there’s something very _intimate_ about it. Not in a sexual way. More like being touched from the inside of the skin. Like the gross poison in him is being swept clean, bit by bit, with the greatest care.

*

 _Gege (older brother)_ would be so horrified if he saw, but River isn’t sorry. Much. She felt Kaylee’s heart pumping, so afraid, and Kaylee should never be afraid like that. First, she’s River’s friend. Second, Simon’s a boob who doesn’t know how to say what he wants to say around Kaylee, how she calms him and riles him up by turns and makes him a real person who wants something for himself. Until the day he figures it out, River’s keeping tabs on how Kaylee feels for the both of them. 

It’s hard for River to say what she thinks, even after Simon finds medicines that help clear some of the fog away, help her walk with her feet and hear with her ears. She feels and hears so much that it’s easy to get swept away. The conditioning usually keeps her bending wrapped up tight and locked down, but she wants to help Kaylee more than she fears the nightmares, and she wants, she wants to help so much that it becomes easy, so easy to reach for the life inside the men who are going to hurt _jie jie (older sister)_ and have already hurt becoming-father, becoming-uncle (not that she’ll ever call them that, she knows their blood would come to their faces and ears in embarrassment). She reaches to the currents, the tides inside every person that she hears so loudly now, and pulls them out.

River's attempt to reassure Kaylee that nothing can stop River from protecting her backfires. Kaylee is afraid now, too. Of River. At least she is alive.

There’s no time to worry about that because Simon has to get to work, and River could help if she weren’t trapped behind walls nobody else could see. She can’t help that way, at least not yet. She knows how to hide anywhere on this ship, spy from a hundred places on this ship, because she knows every bolt and plate of this ship and how they sing of home and give her all these safe places to tuck herself away. So she hides where she can listen. It’s not fair that Simon has to do so much alone. Even if he doesn’t know it, she’s here to keep him company.

Mal has less blood than he should, but he can make up for it if he rests, drinks, and eats. There’s been electricity coursing through him recently. She sees the echo of it when she closes her eyes. (The Academy didn’t teach her that one, but she knows fire and she knows physics, so she knows lightning) He has sharp wounds somehow beneath the skin, and blood seeping purple and blue from bruises. She can breathe better again when his heart rate settles into sleep.

There is fluid in Wash’s arteries in veins that is not blood, doesn’t have the weight and texture of it, and that mixed with the ashes that tinge Zoe’s limbs after she firebends makes River a bit dizzy. It takes a few minutes to figure out the bizarre seep and slow current that is Simon IV-bending, but once she does, her own heartbeat stops thudding so much.

Her hands are stained with blood she’s never touched. But Simon is dancing the very same dance, simply to different music, and he’s using it to heal.

*

Niska turning down Zoe’s offer of ransom has the silver lining of the crew still having a decent amount of cash on hand, enough to afford a pause between jobs, so Mal yields to Simon’s advice and Wash’s puppy eyes. They drop Inara off on a more populated world where she can work, then make their way to a nearby moon where the locals are happy to sell them supplies and let them park next to a quiet lake for two weeks for a reasonable fee. The lake is actually a man-made reservoir for water they use during drier times, but the locals don’t mind the occasional human body coming into contact with it as long as nobody dumps pollutants in there.

To be fair, Mal could probably use more than a fortnight of quiet, but the ‘verse ain’t fair and he feels like he’s luxuriating enough as it is. It would probably be only one week if he didn’t have the others to consider. It ain’t only about him and Wash. It hasn’t escaped Mal’s notice that the doctor’s burned himself out, as it were, doing whatever fancy bending thing he did to get Wash on the mend much faster. Dark rings under his eyes for days now, and hardly a word. It’s spread to River, too, and while the lack of antics is in some ways welcome, it’s disheartening to see her moping around like a little ghost, worse than her tearing the labels off cans for unknown reasons. It’s known to Mal that waterbenders aren’t at their best when they spend too long without much contact with water. The choice of parking next to a lake wasn’t a coincidence.

The Tams don’t have proper swimwear, having little enough occasion for swimming while on the run in the black, but to everyone else’s surprise given Simon’s perpetual prissiness, waterbenders are entirely relaxed about skinny dipping. Something about communing with their element being restorative and therefore inherently un-shameful. As a precaution to avoid Simon and Jayne clashing over accusations of girl-ogling, though, Mal suggests very strongly for Jayne to spend that same time going drinking, or finding grown and interested women in town. Jayne goes along with both suggestions. 

Meanwhile, Zoe’s alternating between firebending drills and lying on the beach with a book (her bookworm side being almost as much of a secret as the firebending). Shepherd Book found a group of townsfolk who’ve been hankering for shepherding, even temporary, ever since their own preacher got run out of town for embezzling church donations, and has also been taking long walks on the beach every dawn for contemplative purposes. So Mal thinks, anyway. He’s not getting up at dawn while he’s on vacation, especially when Mal’s getting nightmares that he refuses to tell anyone about. Kaylee and Wash have been practicing their bending, too, and plus Zoe they’ve made a few shopping excursions to the local market, such as it is. Wash takes care to only fly around occasionally and not over the town itself. He also lies next to Zoe on the beach, cuddling her or reading, or the pair are conspicuously absent and probably in their bunk. They swim together sometimes, but their priorities are elsewhere. 

While not in the habit of being sentimental and overly truthsome with his pilot, Mal has become closer to Wash than they used to be, and they check in with one another in their own way. 

_How you doin’, Mal?_

_Thinkin’ of going for a run. Doc cleared me for it. Still might turn into a walk after the first while, though._

_Hey, maybe I’ll see you from above. Did you sleep well?_

_No._

_Yeah. Me neither._

(Mal’s only good dream since Niska so far was about Inara, and that’s not exactly a simple thing to unpack and is best forgotten.)

Being captain keeps going even when _Serenity_ is on the ground. Mal sits in a chair outdoors to go over their finances and plan out their next few steps, rather than working on all that in his bunk or at the dining table like he usually would. He grabs Kaylee to walk around the outside of the ship, find anything needs fixing and do what they can with what they got. He cleans his guns while sitting on a blanket on the ground. 

At the moment, he’s in the middle of updating his list of business contacts, crossing out anyone who’s died, been bound by law, or turned less friendly since the last time he did a major overhaul. It’s a pleasant afternoon with his chair under the shade of a big tree, with the lake in his line of sight but not directly in front of him. Zoe’s doing another drill at a safe distance, but nobody else is around. 

“Could take your armor off,” says a voice, and he will never admit that he almost jumped out of his skin. It’s only River, peeking out from behind another tree. She’s wrapped in a towel and has damp hair and no shoes, but she’s also got a dress on underneath, so Mal will at least avoid an awkward situation. 

“No armor here, little one,” he says. She spent part of yesterday burying herself in sand and mumbling equations, one of her harmless-but-creepifying moments, but so far today she’s been almost normal. Just a bit elliptical. 

“Don’t have to see armor for it to be there. Hard to feel the breeze when it’s on.” River does a pirouette and ends it by pointing at him. “You should swim. Nobody else is in the water; nobody has to see you if you don’t want.”

“I’m all right, thanks. I know how to swim, but I don’t need it. Non-bender and such.”

“We all have water in us,” she says, very seriously. “All the elements are in all of us. Yours are just equally in balance most of the time, not disproportionate within your psyche. But you’ve been very dry.”

He smiles at her noncommittally. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Your mind can bear you.” She smiles, an echo of his, and runs away.

That night, Mal wakes from another nightmare, one in which one of his ears gets cut off and Wash dies, where Zoe is stoic and never accuses Mal of failing them. He leaves a note on the dining table in case anyone gets worried, then leaves the ship to go down by the lake. The stars are bright, as is the reflected light from the planet this moon orbits. (Inara is on that planet right now, and he tries not to think of the symbolism.)

Though his clothes are clean, he feels like his own blood still stains them. So he takes them off and dives into the water. He’s not looking to be clean. He’s willing to believe he can be himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having fun figuring out how River can have results similar to her canon psychic abilities, but based entirely on bending principles, and I hope it comes across as plausible within the crossover premise.


End file.
